Review: (God Save My) Northern Soul review, Park Theatre

Nicole, a 19-year-old woman, loses her mother on the eve of going to university and is thrown both into a state of grief and into adulthood, having to do everything from shopping, to running a business by herself.

This is a powerful story that shows how sudden bereavement can devastate your world. Its strength is showing how small, everyday things trigger waves of grief; from going to the shops or choosing a dress for the funeral.

Natasha Cottriall delivers a strong performance as the grieving Nicole, trying to put a brave face on for the external world and making her sadness apparent. The writing and her acting make it easy to relate to Nicole having to figure out the adult world that does not come with a manual. It is moving to watch her grieve and move on. She has the sense of an every-person; someone who is relatable and is going through what any of us could or has experienced.

This is also the portrait of a place, Wigan, an ordinary British town where ordinary people’s experiences are charted, in the tradition of the social realist kitchen sink drama. Nights out and the rituals of everyday life are chronicled with real affection. Nicole’s mother was a lover of Northern Soul, which builds her up as a character and adds specificity to the drama. But some of the characters are broadly drawn, lacking many specific details other than a love of Northern Soul. This shows the risks in creating an every-person character which is easy to relate to because anyone can project their experience onto them; they can become too broad and vague to feel like real people, as is the case here.

There are moments of humour, showing the absurdity of everyday life. These vary the tone and prevent it becoming too miserable. Several comedy characters add levity, such as Nicole’s outrageous work colleague, Sally, or the young man she meets who talks incessantly about his van and mentions that a ghost once put him in a headlock.

The story suddenly ends after Nicole’s mother’s funeral, which is too soon in the narrative to provide a proper resolution to Nicole’s arc. I would have liked more character resolution and a more definite ending, showing how Nicole is transformed by this experience and the path that she is now on. That said, the image of Nicole and her mother’s friends dancing to Northern Soul is an emotional moment to end on.

(God Save My) Northern Soul is a good story that shows how devastating grief is and how hard it is to climb out of the pit that a sudden death can throw you into. However, it needs more depth and specificity to resonate beyond the broad evocation of bereavement.

Written by: Natasha Cottriall
Directed by: Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder
Design by: Alex Marker
Sound design by: Chris James
Lighting by: Richard Williamson
Stage manager: Erin Blake
Produced by: Toby Parsons
Production coordinator: Zoey Mishchiy

(God Save My) Northern Soul plays at Park Theatre until Saturday 20 September.